Carry on cursing: Comedy contains strong language, shame about the plot

Punters at the Rose Theatre in Kingston are warned that this show contains very strong language. They should also be advised that the comedy, about a local family who’ve been running a small town drug cartel for 35 years, contains some fairly strong jokes. Now if only the play, by One Man, Two Guvnors author Richard Bean, contained a strong plot, we’d be in business.

Starring regulation bad boy Keith Allen, the work from 2003 is updated from Whitley Bay to Kingston Upon Thames, and post code snobbery offers renewed chuckles.

Yet despite a notional plot of Russians taking over the Robinson family patch, not a lot happens.

 

On stage: Denise Welch and Keith Allen star in Smack Family Robinson at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, but punters are warned that this show contains very strong language

I was reminded of The Osbournes by the fusion of flashy furniture and non-stop f-ing and blinding. There are dashes, too, of the inebriation of Ab Fab, and the cartoon characters of Harry Enfield.

Directed by One Foot In The Grave star Richard Wilson, the bling production, set atop a shag pile carpet, has Allen playing a latter day Alf Garnett. Instead of sitting in a dusty old armchair banging on about the war, he’s enthroned on a white Heals sofa harping on about free love and pop festivals in the Sixties.

As a cartoon rocker with grey pony tail and handlebar ’tash, Allen is a likeable old rogue, straight off a seaside postcard in Southend.

 

Is that you? Keith plays Gavin, while Denise stars as Catherine in the show about a local family who've been running a small town drug cartel for 35 years

Elsewhere it’s pure Carry On, with Denise Welch from Loose Women playing a bosomy middle-aged groupie who runs a florists with a £3 million turnover.

Matthew Wilson amuses as the blinking family idiot, and Harry Melling is the drug running raver with jewellery from Argos and an accent from Ali-G.

Only Kate Lamb, as the straight daughter trying to concentrate on her exams (a nod to Saffron in Ab Fab), rises above caricature as a career-minded Daddy’s girl.

 

Taking their bows: Matthew Wilson also stars and amuses as the blinking family idiot, while Harry Melling is the drug running raver with jewellery from Argos and an accent from Ali-G

Unsurprisingly, former stand-up comedian Mr Bean supplies great, if mostly unrepeatable, jokes. Private parts are referred to as the ‘home entertainment system’ and we are cheerfully advised that ‘bad manners cost nothing’.

The language might shock a vicar’s tea party, but it is also a marketing ploy and despite all the oaths, Smack Family Robinson is not nearly as naughty as it would like you to think.